This article reports the first findings of the Wurzburg Longitudinal Memory Study, which focuses on children's verbal memory development, particularly the acquisition of memory strategies. At the beginning of the study, 100 kindergarten children (mean age 6-and-1/2 years) were tested on various memory measures, including sort--recall, text recall,…

This book presents 12 strategies (focusing on one strategy a week) for students to increase vocabulary and boost communication skills, suggesting that these techniques can easily double the average person's vocabulary. After an introduction, the book presents the following 12 techniques: (1) "Expand on What You Know: Synonyms, Antonyms, and…

This second edition presents 12 strategies (focusing on one strategy a week) for students to increase vocabulary and boost communication skills, suggesting that these techniques can easily double the average person's vocabulary. After an introduction, the book presents the following 12 techniques: (1) Expand on What You Know: Synonyms, Antonyms,…

Production data from a longitudinal study of seven children in their first attempts to produce words containing fricatives are presented to illustrate how children use four distinct strategies to approach this relatively difficult class of sounds. The strategies are: (1) favorite sounds--an approach used by a subject who seemed to enjoy playing…

Investigates whether students could more easily remember synthetic words by rehearsing with definitions, examples, or sentence composing. Concludes that students who used sentence composing performed better on a posttest than those who had rehearsed using examples and definitions. (SRT)

This book is designed to provide practical advice to parents and educators on the language acquisition process. Citing numerous case studies and anecdotal examples, it explains how children learn to talk and acquire language. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to language acquisition, explaining the components, forms, and structure of language.…

Challenges the belief in contemporary English language teaching that students should be exposed to authentic or natural language focused on achieving practical purposes, and draws some lessons from the classroom from the way young children play with language. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Describes the use of writing activities as tools for teaching mathematics while helping students develop communication and reasoning skills. Writing takes the form of formal essays about mathematical problems, writing to prompts, or focused journal writing. Students learn to clarify, refine, and consolidate thinking. Children learn mathematics…

Data from responses to a grammaticality judgement test by 26 learners of English as a second language at two proficiency levels were used to investigate syntactic acquisition. Four syntactic structures were examined. Results suggest that less proficient subjects use syntactic strategies, while more proficient learners use semantic-based…

It is proposed that in studying the development of children's speech, the findings in the data are heavily influenced by what is expected to be found on the basis of our theoretical preconceptions. This phenomenon is actually more widespread than has previously been acknowledged, and our expectations about how children learn language may have to…

This paper describes the development and use of language training procedures, referred to as cues-pause-point procedures, that rely on behavioral principles and simple and natural teaching procedures and that are exhibited in many normal parent-child or teacher-student verbal interactions. The procedures have been effective in teaching severely…